As the electronics industry advances, and production of light weight components increases, the development of new materials gives producers increased options for further improving the performance and ease of manufacture of such components. Materials used in the manufacture of electronic components include the resin required for the preparation of prepregs (which are, in turn, used for the preparation of multilayered printed circuit boards and printed wiring boards), resins used for the preparation of solder masks (which define solder areas on the multilayered printed wiring board), and resins used for preparation of glob top (which protects microelectronic devices from the environment).
Multilayered printed circuit boards are currently produced mainly by (a) a mass laminating technique and (b) a pin laminating technique. In these techniques, a printed circuit board for inner layer use (hereinafter, referred to as "inner-layer board") is first manufactured. This inner-layer board is combined with prepregs and then a copper foil or a single-side copper-clad laminate and the superposed laminating materials are laminated to give a multilayered board, both sides of which are constituted by a copper foil. This multilayered structure is subjected to processing steps such as steps for forming through-holes, outer-layer printed circuits, etc.
The initial manufacture of resins used in laminates is usually conducted by chemical producers and supplied to the trade in a workable form. Addition of a curing agent or catalyst, as well as optional components such as diluents, flow promoters, fire retardants, and other modifying resins is performed by the user. This may be done in the interest of customization to the application or to ensure that pre-reaction of the formulation does not occur.
The catalyzed resin system is placed into a dip tank in which the glass cloth is immersed. The wet-coated cloth is squeezed between metering rolls to leave a measured amount of the resin system. Then it passes into a tunnel drier to remove any volatile materials (e.g., solvent if present) and usually to react the resin to a predetermined molecular weight. This ensures the proper amount of flow during lamination.
After the coated cloth has passed through the tunnel drier, the resin is high enough in T.sub.g to permit handling. At this stage, it is called prepreg; it can be cut into sheets or stored in roll form. Storage is often at room temperature, although some formulations require refrigeration.
Cut to size, sheets of prepreg are stacked between polished steel plates for placement in a laminating press. If printed circuits are to be made from the cured stock, copper foil is placed at the two surfaces of the stack. Otherwise, separator sheets or lubricants ensure removal of the plates from the cured laminate.
The conditions under which cure takes place vary with the resin type, thickness of the laminate, and other factors. Resin cure might be carried out, for example, at 175.degree. C., from 250 to 1,000 psi, and for 30 to 60 minutes at temperature, followed by cooling. Certain resins (e.g., heat-resistant polymers) may require 200.degree. C. or more for complete cure. Since steam-heated presses do not operate well above 175.degree. C., frequently a partial cure is effected at this temperature and the remainder carried out in an oven at the higher temperature. Warpage is a definite possibility under such a procedure. Control of dimensional stability of laminate material and stability of assembled boards are both becoming more important. Towards that end, the trend is toward use of higher T.sub.g resin material, laminated in a vacuum process to meet the fabrication-tolerance requirements and to reduce moisture absorption.
The behavior of high-reliability printed-circuit laminates may be improved by the addition of silane couplers to the resin materials employed for preparation of laminate. While the addition of couplers is intended to permit the resulting composites to be used in uncontrolled environments, many prior art materials appear to fail under certain conditions of high humidity and voltage stress. The result is the creation of copper-shorting filament plated along the glass surface. These may penetrate from one circuit element to another. Because the accelerating factors for this phenomenon are ionic contamination, humidity, voltage, and temperature, the chief test for suitability of the selected resin material and coupler for the intended use is the electrical resistance between interconnection lines or holes under voltage stress at high humidity.
When performing as intended, the coupler serves to bond the glass and cured resin strongly so that they act as a composite, although with anisotropic mechanical properties. Residual stresses in this composite affect the dimensional stability thereof. One source of these stresses is the glass fabric itself. The warp (machine direction) strands are flattened by tension during the impregnation process, while the crimp of the fill fibers is actually increased. Both are flattened during lamination. Repeat pressing raises the cured resin above its T.sub.g ; the softened material allows the glass fibers to relax, changing dimension. Temperature variation across the surface of the laminate during cure, resin flow to fill around elements in already circuitized substrates, as well as hole drilling; all create stress-induced dimensional change. Cross orienting alternate plies of the glass cloth can compensate glass-cloth tension, but in most cases, tracking such factors is not straightforward.
As a consequence, detailed correlation is lacking between dimensional change and the factors most predictive models assume for deformation; orthotopic contraction, warp, twist, and other high-order strain functions. Nonetheless, general effects are discernible, and the complex sequence of processes used to make multilayer boards is monitored and controlled based on computer predictive models derived from highly precise measurement techniques. This assures that the element in each layer will register to the others in the composite. Because moisture and temperature affect dimensions significantly compared with the factors discussed, prepregs, cores, and subcomposites are often temperature and humidity stabilized at critical process steps.
Another common use of resins in the electronics industry is for the preparation of solder masks. Solder mask is used to prevent excessive flow of solder in plastic packages. The material used must maintain the integrity of the physical, chemical, mechanical and environmentally related properties of the package. Solder masks were originally intended to be used on printed wiring boards (PWBs) as an aid to manufacturing, reducing the need for touch-up after machine soldering, reducing solder consumption, and providing mechanical protection for the main portion of the circuitry.
The main type of solder mask employed in the art is the "liquid photoimageable" solder mask. There are three primary methods of applying this type of solder mask: flood screen-coating, curtain and spray coating. Each method has both advantages and drawbacks. Screen coating, for example, is efficient in material usage, but through-holes may be plugged in the process. These holes must then be cleared during development. Curtain coating is also efficient, but it is also a much slower process due to the fact that only one side of a board can be coated at a time. Spray coating is the best method to accomplish complete fill and trace application, but this technique can result in substantial material losses (e.g., in the range of 10-30% waste).
Another common use of resins in the electronics industry is as a liquid encapsulant (also referred to as "glob top"), wherein an aliquot of resin material is used to encase a component to protect it from certain stresses and from exposure to the environment. To meet the industry's ever-increasing demand for device reliability, materials for encapsulant applications must meet increasingly stringent property requirements. Such requirements include excellent moisture resistance, ionic purity, low dielectric constant and good thermal properties. In the absence of these properties, especially in the presence of moisture and ionic impurities, corrosion (and ultimately failure of the device) will likely occur.
Yet another common use of resins in the electronics industry is in the preparation of non-hermetic electronic packages. Examples of such packages are ball grid array (BGA) assemblies, super ball grid arrays, IC memory cards, chip carriers, hybrid circuits, chip-on-board, multi-chip modules, pin grid arrays, and the like. In these structures, moisture resistance is an important consideration, both in terms of handling during assembly and reliability of the finished part. For example, absorption of moisture during assembly frequently leads to "popcorning" (the sometimes violent release of absorbed moisture upon heating to solder reflow temperatures). Accordingly, the development of moisture resistant resins for use in the preparation of non-hermetic electronic packages would be of great benefit to the art.
Accordingly, what is still needed in the art are materials which have good workability properties (e.g., fluid under typical processing conditions) and good performance properties (e.g., good adhesion, moisture resistance, etc.).